


idealism and reality (in excess)

by postfixrevolution



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Author(s) AU, F/M, First Meet, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn (kinda), coffee shop AU, modern day AU, silas & kamui is the best friendship and i will fight anyone who says otherwise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 03:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7828714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postfixrevolution/pseuds/postfixrevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“That’s exactly what your stories are missing,” Leo tells her simply. “Anguish. Loss. <i>Reality</i>.” His earthen eyes bore into hers as he lowers his laptop screen. “Not everything has a happy ending.”</p><p>Kamui frowns, pries her notebook out from beneath his spindly fingers and brings it close to her chest. She glances down at her words for a second, following the curly, messy slant of them, and brings her crimson eyes back to his hesitantly. </p><p>“I… I know what you mean,” she replies quietly. “About anguish and loss and reality. But, I write happy endings because I believe in them,” she continues softly. “To write the kind of suffering you’re talking about... That can't give others hope. It just feels like giving up.”</p><p>-</p><p>or: Kamui is a canvas-bound notebook and sapphire ink pen kind of girl. Leo is a scratchless slim laptop and genuine leather bag kind of guy. Their writing styles don’t quite match up.</p><p>[ a modern day, coffee shop, <i>and</i> authors AU ]</p>
            </blockquote>





	idealism and reality (in excess)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sacredsymbol821](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sacredsymbol821/gifts).



> Happy birthday to my wonderful friend, Sacred~ I'm super glad we met, and I hope you have a birthday as amazing as you are! ^u^
> 
> Unbeta-ed but spell checked, as per the usual, and I hope you enjoy~

Kamui leans her cheek in her palm, elbow digging into the painfully hard surface of the cafe’s wooden table. In the corner of her notebook, she doodles nebulous lines and curls, tracing some fluid pattern until the beginning of it blends into the middle, and the end remains a distant thought as she follows the whimsy of her restless fingertips down the margins of her page. Her siblings tease her for refusing to use a laptop to record her endless ideas, but she could never see herself trading the sterile blankness of typed pages for the messy doodles and curves that litter every page of her beloved notebook. 

A sigh falls from her lips as she finishes her pattern with a small flourish, a dainty tail for a bending, twisting shape. It almost looks like a serpent, she muses to herself. Some fantastical creature built upon the image of a plain reality and expanded by imagination unbounded. She smiles smally to herself. That’s why she writes, she thinks fondly to herself. Her works are the imagination of a child confined too long to the small rooms of the orphanage finally let free, and Kamui has run across endless fields with only wind in her hair and the feeling of wispy grass under her feet, but she’s never felt freedom like the feeling of pen on paper, her mind allowed to instill life into every wondrous idea she’s had since she could think a coherent thought. 

With a somewhat renewed resolve, she reaches for her tea, ready to take a sip and begin writing anew. The beverage has long since grown cold, and a small frown plays at her lips as she finishes it, the floral scent of the chrysanthemum drink long since faded away. Even despite the record high temperatures that beat mercilessly down on the city outside her favorite cafe, Kamui had never been able to resist the soothing warmth of a hot cup of tea, her favorite companion to an afternoon spent writing. 

This afternoon has been admittedly less productive than usual, the heat driving many more talkative and bustling characters into the cafe than she’s used to, and the sound and opportunities to people watch were too distracting for her not to allow her eyes and mind to wander. She scans the cafe idly, tapping her pen on her notebook as she does, and contemplates buying another cup of tea. While the cafe’s tables are all filled to the brim with chattering customers, the line itself is empty. She chews on her lip for a moment, weighing the pros and cons, but with a quick glance at the blazing sunlight outside, she slips five dollars out of her purse and decides to indulge herself.

A familiar face stands at the register, and upon noticing her approach, a bright smile pulls up at his lips.

“Here for another cup already?” Silas asks, arching an eyebrow at her teasingly. “You’ll drink us out of our tea before the sun even sets!”

Kamui rolls her eyes at him fondly. “Some coffee shop you are, running out of drinks so early,” she repartees. “But if it helps, I won’t order chrysanthemum this time,” she laughs, handing him the five. He takes it with ease.

“Is that so? Then tell me, what does my most valued customer want today?”

Kamui purses her lips, scanning the list of teas before her. Silas opens the register as he waits, sorting out the proper change. 

“Surprise me,” she eventually decides. “Unsweetened, and--”

“No ice,” he finishes, handing her a small stack of coins. She smiles.

“Keen as ever, my most valued coffeeshop cashier,” she replies primly.

Silas snorts. “Years of dealing with your best friend’s weird-as-hell tea drinking habits will do that to a person,” he tells her, and before she has time to do little more than stick her tongue out at him, he bustles off into the back room to grab some tea leaves. Kamui pockets her change and returns to her seat, thankful to see it still open in the crowded cafe. She returns eagerly to penning down ideas for her newest novel, errant thoughts of fights to be had and fantastical landscapes to be traversed. She pulls from memories of terrifying orphanage managers and bright verdant eyes urging her to be quiet as they snuck past the dreary walls of the prison she once called home. The image of a bright orange and rosete sun reflecting on the ocean at sunset floods into her mind soon after, memories of the first day with her adopted family stealing her concentration away and filling her with a pleasant sense of warmth. 

A smile pulls up at her lips, and she scribbles that exact image down in her notes, letting the smell of salt water and the cool tang of the ocean breeze spur her on. The image is as clear in her mind as it was on the day she first saw it, and she hopes to be able to paint such a sight in the mind of her readers someday, too. To let them feel hope and awe in the same way she did that day, with four new siblings and a new father standing steadfast at her side. 

Kamui is so lost in thought that she doesn’t notice Silas until he places a steaming cup of tea in front of her, clearing his throat expectantly. She is pulled from her reverie with a soft flinch, and judging by the knowing smile on her best friend’s lips, he was well aware of the fact. She smiles back sheepishly.

“Jasmine silver needle,” he tells her, nudging the cup toward her gently. She doesn’t recognize the name. “It’s supposed to be added to the menu next week,” he adds with a wink. Kamui thanks him profusely, taking the cup with careful fingers. The scent is absolutely divine, and she does little to hold back the dreamy sigh that tumbles past her lips as she breathes in the tea happily. Her sense of contentment is only heightened as she takes a small sip, and she decides to order this tea more often once it’s released.

“It’s amazing!” she tells him earnestly. “Sit down and have some with me after your shift,” she insists.

Silas exhales a soft laugh, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I can’t,” he explains lamely. “I told Takumi I’d cover for him so that he could make his archery meetup.”

Kamui raises her eyebrows quizzically. “My brother? Really? I thought he still wasn’t speaking to you after your video game night last weekend. Something about being unfairly distracting in the middle of a competitive match,” she recalls with a giggle. Silas averts his gaze, cheeks blossoming a bright pink, and her giggles quickly build into full fledged laughter. “You don’t have to be shy around me; I already know  _ more _ than enough about you and Takumi’s video game nights,” she laughs pleasantly, causing her friend’s blush to grow even darker.

He opens his mouth to respond, probably with denial and indignance, but a soft twinkle interrupts him, the sound of another customer arriving to seek a drink and solace from the heat outside. Silas’s mouth closes with a snap.

“Don’t worry; go do your job,” she tells him easily. “I’ll tell my brother you send your love,” at which Silas opens his mouth to argue, “but not before I send him a good lecture for heaping all his shifts on my poor best friend!” Her exaggerated pout is met with a warm smile.

“Thanks, Kamui.”

“Of course. Now go! Your customer is waiting!”

With a quick nod, Silas rushes back to his station, and Kamui returns just as easily to her writing, a small smile still pulling up at her lips from her previous conversation. She hums to herself as she mentally throws ideas around, the musical tune that she always imagines her most recent novel’s golden-eyed heroine always singing, and is lost pleasantly in her planning until her thoughts are broken once more by the sound of a throat clearing. She looks up, expecting to be met with steel grey hair and verdant eyes, but the golden hair and rich earthen eyes that greet her are anything but. The sunlight that pours in from the window sets his hair and features ablaze, and Kamui’s first thought is that he looks like an angel.

“Is this seat taken?” the angel asks. Kamui blinks blankly. The man asks. Not an angel. She shakes her head to clear it.

“It’s all yours,” she responds, trying not to sound so dazed. He tils his head wordlessly in thanks, and crimson eyes watch absently as he sits down regally, setting his cup down on the table. Smoke curls up from the paper cup, almost akin to her own warm drink, but a second glance reveals an impossibly dark coffee as its contents. He pulls out a laptop from the neat leather bag hanging at his hip, and without a moment’s hesitation, clicks on a few items and begins to type. Curiosity tugs at the front of her mind despite herself, and Kamui glances down once at her own writing before bringing her gaze back up. The stranger before her remains as focussed as ever, and after a few more moments of deliberation, she decides to speak up.

“I’m Kamui, by the way. Kamui Shirokawa.”

He looks up from his laptop with sharp eyes.

“Shirokawa,” he repeats slowly. “The author?”

Kamui’s eyes widen. “You… You know me?” she asks dazedly.

The corner of his lips twitches up, the resulting shape reminiscent of a smirk. “One could say that.”

She’s unable to help the smile that spreads out across her face, exhaling a breathy, exhilarated laugh. “Wow, I-- I can’t believe this! Do you...like my books?” she asks tentatively. Her fingers curl anxiously into her fists as she awaits an answer, and the man before her doesn’t seem to be in any rush to provide that. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear self consciously under his sharp gaze, but doesn’t quite look away. True to her first impression of him, the sunlight that pours in from the window at their side makes his blond hair seem gold, and his eyes, brown at first glance, are as rich an earthen tone as the soil in Sakura’s garden. He is eye catching in a way she’s unused to, and that fact is more than enough to hold her gaze.

“I’m Leo,” he says eventually. His avoidance of her previous question doesn’t go unnoticed. “Leo Nacht.”

It is her turn to echo his name, rolling the quick utterance around her tongue contemplatively. “Nacht, huh?” Crimson eyes look at him curiously. “You wouldn’t happen to be the same Leo Nacht that wrote--”

“The very same,” he answers, an easy smirk pulling up at his lips. “It’s a pleasure making your acquaintance, Miss Shirokawa.”

“Likewise, Mister Nacht,” she chirps with a smile. “And Kamui is just fine.”

“As you wish, Kamui. You can call me Leo, as well, if you wish.”

“Of course!” she replies pleasantly. “You never did answer my question earlier though. I’m curious.”

He arches a thin eyebrow at her. “About your books? That’s a rather personal question, isn’t it? Are you sure you really want my opinion on it? We’re of very different genres, after all.”

Kamui tilts her head at him quizzically. “But we’re both authors, aren’t we? Horror-mystery or fantasy-adventure; what does that matter when we both still write because we love it?”

He laughs softly, the barely-there exhalation of a laugh.

“If you’re that curious, I’d be happy to oblige,” he tells her smoothly. She watches him expectantly. “You’re a strong writer, with a compelling voice unlike any I’ve read before, but your ideas lack conviction, substance. Plot-wise,  _ The Invisible Kingdom _ was unfortunately dull.”

Crimson eyes blink at him blankly. “Oh,” she says smally. 

His lips fall into small frown.

“Don’t take my words too personally,” he begins. “I’m simply speaking from one writer to anoth--”

“Tell me what I’m missing.”

It’s his turn to blink at her. “Excuse me?”

Kamui inhales a slow, deep breath, staring him levelly in the eye. “I want to know your completely thoughts on my writing, whether or not you think I want to hear it.” His eyes widen slightly at her words. “I love writing,” she adds softly. “And I can’t let that feeling go to waste. Being able to write means too much to me. Will you help me to improve, Leo?”

Earthen eyes stare at her for a moment, stuck somewhere between speechlessness and awe, and it is a solid few minutes until Leo blinks clarity back into his eyes, shakes his head slightly and meets her unwavering gaze with one of his own. 

“You’re truly something else, Kamui,” he notes, a quick chuckle coloring the lilt of his voice. “There’s something about you… I can see now why fantasy so easily suits you.” She eyes him confusedly. He shrugs. “No matter. It’s that rejection of reality that defines you as much as it defames you.”

“Rejection of reality?” she repeats questioningly. 

“Yes,” he says. “That’s exactly what your stories are missing,” Leo tells her simply. “Anguish. Loss.  _ Reality _ .” His earthen eyes bore into hers as he lowers his laptop screen, reaching across the table and laying his fingertips carefully on the top margin of her notes. “Not everyone is so resolute as you. Not everything has a happy ending.”

Kamui frowns, pries her notebook out from beneath his spindly fingers and brings it close to her chest. She glances down at her words for a second, following the curly, messy slant of them, and brings her crimson eyes back to his hesitantly. 

“I… I know what you mean,” she replies quietly. “About anguish and loss and reality. I learned more than enough about that, growing up as an orphan,” she laughs hollowly. “But, I write happy endings because I believe in them,” she continues softly. “To write the kind of suffering you’re talking about, the kind that I try not to dwell on every day... That can't give others hope. It just feels like giving up.”

He looks at her intensely, earthen eyes sharp and unblinking, but Kamui remains unshaken; it isn’t in her nature to do anything but stare levelly back.

“For a moment,” he begins slowly, “I had been so sure that the writing reflected the author, more so in your case than anything. I see now, that I may have misjudged you, Kamui. Even your hopelessly idealistic plots can hide a desperate determination behind them.” A small, appreciative smile pulls up at his lips, accentuated with a brief, breathy chuckle. “What your stories lack, you have. In excess.”

Her lips fall slack, the beginnings of questions and requests for elaboration dancing along the tip of them, but at his easy smile, she presses her mouth closed, laying her notebook once more on the table. She brushes her fingertips over the paper gently, running fingers over the sapphire inked serpent she had scribbled on not long ago. If she added legs here, and large, spindly wings there, her notebook might sport a dragon, mythical and magical and every bit the embodiment of the fantasy that her writing is so full of.

“Do you really believe so?” she asks, crimson eyes fixed on her swirling sketch of a beast. Kamui picks up her pen, starts to trace long, twisting wings. She can feel Leo’s eyes on her hands as she does so.

“I see no reason to believe otherwise,” he tells her candidly. “Just as I see no reason to  _ not _ believe in your undeniably real desire to improve in your writing.”

Her gaze flickers up at that, and she sees him smiling; it’s no smirk and no small, barely there smile, and the sight reminds her absently of mistaken angels. 

“I find I’d like to see that improvement, actually,” he continues, smoothly pushing his laptop shut. He slides it deftly into his bag and stands up, swiping up his cup and taking a sip of his long cold coffee. “Perhaps you’d allow me to join you again tomorrow, Miss Shirokawa?”

It takes a moment for his proposition to register, and when it does, Kamui can’t hold back her grin. She stands up, slipping her notebook and pen into her purse and picking up her lukewarm tea. “I think I’d enjoy that, Mister Nacht,” she replies with a soft giggle. “And maybe we can talk about  _ your  _ writing, next time.”

“It’d be my pleasure,” Leo laughs, louder and so much freer than his previous ones, and Kamui feels her stomach flutter at the sound. She mentally records the feeling immediately, and Kamui wonders if she’ll have room to add a feeling as blissful as this to her next novel. A last glance from Leo over his shoulder as he leaves tells her she might just.

**Author's Note:**

> Completely unrelated headcanon, but: Leo only drinks black coffee when he really needs to work. He's actually an incorrigible sweet tooth, and when he gets a frappuccino on their next writing date, Kamui teases him relentlessly.


End file.
